Pillager Public School District

Schools in the Pillager Public School District consist of three schools — Pillager Elementary (PK–4), Pillager Middle School (5–8), and Pillager Senior High School (9–12) — all sharing one campus at 323 E 2nd St S in Pillager, Minnesota, and together serving 1,324 students across grades PK–12. The district as a whole is rated 3 stars and ranks 146th of 458 Minnesota districts, about the 68th percentile.

Each school has a different strength. Pillager Senior High School has the area's best outcomes: a 95.6% graduation rate versus 84.9% statewide, a 1.0% dropout rate versus 4.2% statewide, and the strongest science scores in the district at 40.6% proficient against a 25.5% state average. Its state ranking also improved from the 44th to the 63rd percentile. Pillager Middle School holds the highest current standing at the 68th percentile and has risen steadily over three years; its reading proficiency of 53.4% beats both the district and the state, and it outpaces the state in three of four grade levels. Pillager Elementary posts the district's top math result at 56.5%, more than 11 points above the 44.9% state figure, though its ranking has slipped from the 63rd–64th percentile range to the 56th.

The clearest shared concern is math as students move up: proficiency falls from 56.5% in elementary to 42.8% in middle school to 27.7% in high school, well under the state's roughly 45%. Grade-level results vary widely — 6th grade math is 58.1% versus 39.5% state, while 8th grade math is 31.7% versus 42.3% and 8th grade science is just 10.9% versus 16.7%. Elementary math also declined year over year while the state held steady. Parents should note that strong graduation outcomes and lower test proficiency can coexist; the district's 68th-percentile rating blends a slipping elementary school, a rising middle school, and a recovering high school.